


Where the Heart Is

by Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)



Series: Valentine's Kisses 2019 [7]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Autistic Kageyama Tobio, Domestic Fluff, Kitaichi Trio are Brothers, M/M, adoption au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 06:59:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17340749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/pseuds/Karasuno%20Volleygays
Summary: Hajime worries a lot - maybe too much - about how he and Tooru will adjust to life as parents, but as soon as they bring the boys home for the first time, all of that melts away. After all, once he meets his new family, he couldn't imagine doing less than his best for all of them.





	Where the Heart Is

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of an expansion of [this story here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14931524/chapters/34591827).

Hajime stalks around the apartment, looking underneath every piece of furniture, every cushion, peers into every nook and cranny. He eyes the rounded edges of the kotatsu with suspicion, not sure if the corners are blunt enough to prevent any accidents. 

And he can’t afford to mess up. Not for this.

In the kitchen, Tooru huffs into his tea and rolls his eyes. “Calm down, Iwa-chan. You’ve checked everything a hundred times and they’re all just as fine as they were the first time you looked. Relax before you pop that blood vessel in your forehead.”

Fingers tightening around the golf club he has been using to swipe underneath low pieces of furniture, Hajime grumbles, “You say that now, but wait until one of them trips and cracks their heads open and bleeds all over the floor. I’m sure you’ll be  _ super _ relaxed when you have to scoop your child up with a spatula and a mop.”

“First of all, eww.” Tooru’s nose wrinkles at Hajime’s words. Hajime doesn’t actually look; he just knows it, feels it behind him. “Second of all, eww again.”

Freezing mid-swipe, Hajime shoots to his feet and glares at the golf club with wide eyes. What is he even doing with something like this in the house when three small children will be arriving in a mere handful of hours? Forget the potential damage to all of Tooru’s beloved volleyball trophies, how much damage can they do to each other?

Tooru chuckles. Leaving his mug of tea on the table, he saunters over and plucks the club out of Hajime’s frozen hands. “You’re thinking too much. Don’t do that, or your head will explode.”

Flexing his grip on the leather handle that is no longer in his hands, Hajime heaves a sigh. “I work with children every day. You have no idea the crazy shit they can hurt themselves on. Sure, I’m legally responsible to keep them safe, even from themselves, but I’ll be legally  _ and _ emotionally responsible for the ones we’re bringing home.”

“And you call me a drama queen.” Tooru flicks Hajime in the forehead and returns the golf club to the crevice between their mattress where it belongs. Apparently, golf clubs were amazing housebreaker deterrents. “Take a breath, drink some tea, and remember that you literally mind small kids for a living. You know what to do if something does happen, and you’ve baby-proofed the whole apartment from top to bottom.”

When Hajime looks up at Tooru, his jaw is quivering with barely suppressed emotions. “We’ve waited so long for this. It’s taken ten years to find an adoption agency that will actually let small children go home with two guys, and if anything happened to any of the boys . . .” He swallows hard and screws his eyes shut to block out the thought, but to no avail.

“You think they’ll come and take the kids away.” Tooru counts to ten under his breath before fixing Hajime with a look nobody he knows could ever say no to. Hands planted on Hajime’s cheeks, he says, “Listen to me, Iwaizumi Hajime, because I don’t want to have to say this every time someone stubs a toe.

“You are ridiculously qualified to be a parent or they wouldn’t have allowed us to adopt one kid, let alone three at once. Kids have accidents.” He chortles, and the sight of Tooru’s amused smile tugs at something warm in Hajime’s chest. “We were made up of bruises and bandages until we were old enough to drive.”

Hajime opens his mouth to refute Tooru’s words, but he can’t because they’re ridiculously true. Himself in particular, they were both prone to bumps and scrapes. Not that he would ever tell another living soul, but Hajime had road rash on his ass for a month because he had thought it a grand idea to sit on a pie plate and let Tooru drag him by a rope tied to his bike.

Tooru’s mother had nearly had a heart attack, and if Hajime’s memory serves, Tooru had been grounded for a month because of that. Hajime’s mother, however, had laughed until she cried and never stopped, even as she dabbed antiseptic to the raw and mangled flesh of Hajime’s bottom.

“I hope you’re starting to remember what little idiots we were,” Tooru murmurs. “And here we are, still alive and in one piece and ready to look after our own flock of little idiots.”

Part of Hajime cries foul at Tooru’s ease at the situation, and it’s louder than the part of him that says his husband is right and he’s winding himself up for nothing. Lamely, he argues, “But you know we’ll get a home inspection once a month for an entire year, and what if —”

Tooru is laughing as he presses his lips to Hajime’s, cutting off his stream of panicked thoughts. Reacting from half a lifetime of experience, Hajime leans into Tooru and lets the heady feeling from it take over.

When Tooru finally relinquishes his hold on Hajime, he’s grinning. “See? Sometimes, things are better when you shut up.”

With a sigh of resignation, Hajime admits, “Okay, you might be right.” His eyes glitter merrily. “Especially about the shutting up part. Nobody knows how nice it is when a certain someone shuts up than me. I’ve been chasing the feeling for over thirty years.”

“Mean, mean Iwa-chan!” Tooru sticks his tongue out through lips that still haven’t stopped smiling. “See if I try to cheer you up again. No appreciation at all for my hard work.”

Filled with a flurry of emotions he could never individually label, Hajime tentatively dubs the mixture as ‘love’. And maybe a little bit of something with an undercurrent to it. He grabs Tooru’s hips and pulls them flush with his own. “Maybe when we get the kids to bed, we can try out some other hard work. We haven’t worked hard in a couple of weeks.”

Tooru’s mouth curls into a smirk. “Naughty, naughty Hajime.” He thrusts his hands into Hajime’s short and always wild hair and pulls them together for a kiss, the flavor of which does not resemble the one before it in the slightest. 

The two of them stagger as their hands set out to do what’s as natural to them as counting or picking up chopsticks. Hajime knows all the places Tooru likes to be touched, and god knows Tooru can find all of Hajime’s. 

Their lip lock ends with a whine of pain and Tooru gracelessly falling on his butt onto the kotatsu, its rounded edge slamming into the back of his calf. Hajime looks at Tooru’s undignified pose and laughs until tears spring to his eyes. Tooru crosses his arms and pouts, a gesture that is strikingly the same as Tooru from thirty years before, his dirt-covered partner in crime.

“Oh, come on. You have to admit that’s at least a little funny.” Hajime holds out a hand, snorting when Tooru swats it away and regains his feet of his own accord. “At the very least, ironic.”

All at once, Tooru’s grumpiness drains away and he elbows Hajime with a wink. “See? Didn’t I tell you? You don’t have to bubble wrap their worlds, Iwa-chan. Just teach them to get around the best you can and hope they make good decisions.”

Hajime can’t help but snort. “Yeah, yeah, I’m a stick in the mud. You’ll be the fun dad, and I’ll be the fussy one. So sue me.”

“I should. You’re guilty of it already.” Tooru pecks a kiss to Hajime’s cheek. “So where were we?”

Fending off Tooru’s hands, which were drifting dangerously close to a certain area, Hajime harrumphs. “Learning how to read the mood, apparently. We need to get going or we’ll be late. I don’t need paranoia to know that won’t look good on our records.”

Tooru tosses Hajime the keys as he tugs on his shoes at the door. “You’re driving. I need to order some stuff.”

“You better not be buying four thousand yen in candy again.” Hajime dons his own shoes and holds the door open for his husband. “Five year olds may already be losing teeth, but we don’t need to help them fall out.”

Waving off Hajime’s words, Tooru grins and says, “No, you’ll totally approve. I promise.”

All the way to the car, they bicker back and forth about the ups and downs of Tooru’s online shopping habit, and the threads of normalcy slowly begin to weave back together for Hajime. He doesn’t know how Tooru does it, but he always knows what Hajime needs and when he needs it. 

He’ll definitely be the fun dad, but he’ll be a great one.

 

**_One Week Later_ **

The sound of a lego tower toppling onto the floorboards rings in Hajime’s ears, but he still hasn’t stopped smiling since they brought the boys home. Three brothers who have lived at the children’s home over half their lives, they quickly and adeptly take to family life. 

Yuutarou beams when his work is praised, whether it’s coloring or building or even putting his racetrack together. Akira flips through picture books all day long, and Hajime is surprised to learn that the youngest of them was the first one to learn to read. He wonders how far someone with that much raw intelligence can go with the right kind of help.

Even little Tobio, who on his best days doesn’t mesh much with his siblings, routinely climbs into bed with him and Tooru to fasten himself to Papa. He doesn’t know how, but it hadn’t even taken a full day for Tobio to wriggle into Hajime’s heart like he’s always been there. 

A shard of white-hot pain lances up through his leg from the sole of his foot, and Hajime bites his lip to stop the reflexive stream of expletives that might have rushed from him only a few weeks before. But as the one who has chosen to stay at home for the first month to get their new family settled in, Hajime doesn’t have that luxury anymore. 

Akira looks up from his fallen lego structure with a wry look on his almost elfin face. “Papa, you stepped on a lego.”

With a huff, Hajime toes off the offending brick and marvels at how something so minuscule could hurt like a son of a bitch underfoot. “I sure did. Do you think maybe it might be a good idea to take apart stuff you built and don’t want anymore over the bucket?”

Deep in thought, far too much so for a child of five, Akira replies, “Yeah. I stepped on one yesterday. It kinda hurt.” 

From the kitchen table, Yuutarou chimes, “We’ve all stepped on your legos, Akira. It sucks.”

“Yuutarou, you’re a little too young for that kind of language.” Hajime quirks a brow, and Yuutarou reddens. “Now, Akira, your brother’s right. Please clean up your legos before Daddy gets home. He has a long day at work, and I doubt he’ll be able to relax and enjoy time with everyone if he’s busy picking blocks out of his sock.”

Akira giggles at the prospect but does as instructed. Hajime backs away (carefully this time) to oversee the scene before him. Akira with his legos, Yuutarou with his coloring books and bucket of crayons, and Tobio with his newest fixation: puzzles. 

Hajime is hard-pressed not to be stunned at the speed with which Tobio’s mind processes the pieces and forms the final picture in his mind. The hundred piece puzzle he puts together in about fifteen minutes would take an average adult longer to do.

He and Tooru are easily the luckiest guys on the planet to have found these boys to build a family with. 

Tooru returns home after six, weary but all smiles as he is greeted by gap-tooth and waves all around. Well, not quite from Tobio, but they’ll get there. They all will. 

With his ‘helper’ at his side, Hajime finishes cooking dinner shortly after. Yuutarou is wide-eyed and in awe of everything in the kitchen, and Hajime thinks his oldest might enjoy cooking someday. It’s always been relaxing for Hajime, and maybe it will for Yuutarou, too.

“Smells like heaven, Yuu-chan,” Oikawa exclaims. “You need to teach Papa how to cook.”

Yuutarou shakes his head vigorously. “No, Daddy. Papa is a really good cook. He says you’re the one who can burn water.” His small brow knits at the turn of phrase. “How does water burn again?”

“When Daddy has to use anything but the microwave,” Hajime says while biting back a laugh. “Luckily, he’s got you and me to keep him from starving or burning the whole building down.”

Tobio’s head darts up, and he looks around the room in panic. Hajime sets the pot of curry on the table and takes a seat next to Tobio on the floor. “You know Papa is only kidding, right? We would never let anything happen to your new home.”

Small fingers trace the outline of the puzzle piece in his hand, and Hajime’s breath hitches when Tobio passes the piece to him. “Thank you, Tobio.” He clicks the piece into place, and the puzzle is finished. “It’s like us, isn’t it? We’re all a bunch of different shaped pieces, but we all fit together, don’t we?”

Tobio doesn’t answer and Hajime doesn’t expect him to. Instead, he holds out a hand to his new son and says, “Wanna come eat dinner? We made curry. You like curry, don’t you?”

A tiny arm darts out and takes Hajime’s proffered hand, and his heart turns over in his chest. “I thought you might.”

The two of them join the rest of their family at the table, which Yuutarou is helping Tooru set. All of them pile around the table and bow their heads to say the usual blessing. It’s something they only started the night the boys came home for the first time.

Later that night, exhausted to the bone, Hajime slumps into bed face first and groans as the mattress embraces his tired body. “Whoever says that stay-home parents have it easy are morons,” he grumbles into his pillow. 

Tooru chuckles as he drops Hajime’s pajamas atop his sprawled form. “You won’t get any argument from me.” He yawns and tucks himself under the covers. “You should really get changed. Tobio-chan won’t be very comfy if he crawls over you and you’re wearing jeans.”

“I hate it when you’re right.” Hajime peels himself out of his clothes and into the soft cotton shorts. “Did you leave the door cracked open for Yuu-chan?”

“Of course.”

“And Akira’s water bottle?”

“Next to his bed.” 

“And Tobio’s weighted blanket?”

Tooru rolls his eyes. “Relax. You don’t have to think about everything. Nobody is perfect except me.”

Hajime snorts. “That’ll be the day.” Propping himself up on his elbow, he can’t fight off a dopey smile. “We have great kids, Tooru.”

‘Yeah.” The door creaks open, and on cue, Tobio pads into their room, draped in his weighted blanket. He crawls up from the foot of the bed and settles himself between Hajime and Tooru, passing out almost as soon as he arrives. “Speak of the devil.”

After tucking the blanket around Tobio, Hajime meets Tooru’s gaze across their pillows. A moment of understanding passes between them, carried across a connection they’ve cultivated for almost all their lives. 

“You did good, Iwa-chan. He’ll be all right.”

“Yeah.” Leaning over to feather a kiss to the top of Tobio’s silky hair, he says, “Good night, Tobio-chan. Papa and Daddy love you.”

As he drifts off himself, Hajime can’t help but think that Tooru had been right on that first day. They are ready for this, and both of them have embraced the challenges of parenthood and all of the rewards that come with it. 

He’ll always worry about the boys and about Tooru, but he has faith in all of them to do their part to make this family work.

And they will. Hajime doesn’t doubt it for a second.

  
  



End file.
